Box Office Report for the Week of April 24

Heading into this weekend, Universal / DreamWorks’ animated The Bad Guys was projected to come in somewhere around third place with about $15 million. Instead, it beats most expectations by debuting in first place with an estimated $24 million. The Bad Guys continues to showcase that families will show up for animated fare.

Paramount’s family action-comedy Sonic the Hedgehog 2 opened on top two weekends ago, exceeding the opening of its February 2020 predecessor by +24%. After that, the sequel fell -59% to second place in its sophomore frame—still earning a bit more than its predecessor’s sophomore frame, but with a steeper percentage drop.

Now in its third weekend, it actually falls below its predecessor’s third weekend, declining -48% to an estimated $15.2M, compared to $16.3M for the original. Still, Sonic 2 seems poised to bring on a third film, before too long.

Last weekend’s leader, Warner Bros.’ Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore underwhelmed at the box office with a $42.1M opening. That was by far a new low for either the Harry Potter or spinoff Fantastic Beasts franchises, although it was about in line with pre-release projections. Could this third installment be the end of the series? It very well might be.

Debuting in fourth place with $12M was The Northman, more or less in line with expectations, if perhaps slightly above. This was always going to be a hard sell for wide audiences, even with critical acclaim, so The Northman probably fared as well as could have been planned for.

Fifth place The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and its $7.1M cume. Word of mouth may help this one over time, so while it may have mostly played to Nicolas Cage fans right now, the well reviewed The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent has a long life ahead of it.

At number six we had Everything Everywhere All At Once, which continues to be a crossover success. Falling out of the top ten was The Batman, after a debut on HBO Max. Opening in limited release were the likes of The Duke, which didn’t make much of a financial dent.

Here’s the full list of the top ten films of the week:

1. The Bad Guys – $24M – 4,009 theatres
2. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – $15.22M (-48%) – 3,809 theatres
3. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore – $14M (-67%) – 4,245 theatres
4. The Northman – $12M – 3,324 theatres
5. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent – $7.17M – 3,036 theatres
6. Everything Everywhere All At Once – $5.42M (-12%) – 2,133 theatres
7. The Lost City – $4.37M (-30%) – 2,828 theatres
8. Father Stu – $3.32M (-38%) – 2,705 theatres
9. Morbius – $2.25M (-52%) – 2,306 theatres
10. Ambulance – $1.8M (-56%) – 1,966 theatres

Source: Box Office Pro